Last season, the Longhorns got a new head football coach. This year, it's a new athletic director.

It's no coincidence that expectations are high in Austin, both on and off the field. While Tom Herman and his staff work at improving upon last year's 7-6 record (an improvement over the 5-7 campaign in 2016), athletic director Chris Del Conte is going to work on a number of things, including continuing the efforts of his predecessor, Mike Perrin, to improve Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.

Last fall, the stadium saw major upgrades in the form of new LED video boards throughout the stadium, a new sound system and improved mobile connectivity. Additional renovations included a new football locker room.

The home of Texas Longhorns Football has been in use since 1924, and Perrin, who was replaced by Del Conte in December 2017, acknowledged the fan experience issues came to light immediately after he was hired in 2015.

"The first weekend I was there, I was racing around the stadium meeting with alumni groups and going to tailgates," he recalls. "A consistent comment — I'll say it was a complaint — was that our sound system had not kept up with advances fans saw when they went to newer stadiums like Baylor or TCU."

Perrin said fans had similar complaints about the main video board. "During our spring game in 2016, I was seated in the north end zone with a number of our alumni and noticed that our uniforms appeared more red than burnt orange."

Perrin quickly created a group to look into what could be done, knowing it wouldn't happen in time for the 2016 season. However, by 2017, the Longhorns had partnered with technology service provider ANC, and they opened the season with the fourth-largest video display in college football and sound system upgrades throughout the entire stadium.

The new video board at Darrell K Royal–Texas Memorial StadiumUniversity of Texas

The main video display in the stadium now measures 55.85 feet high by 124.38 feet wide with sideline and end zone fascia throughout the stadium. Additional ribbon boards throughout the stadium bring the total square footage to more than 14,000 square feet of LEDs.

One of the more interesting features is the use of brighter LED lights to combat the Texas sun and ensure video would be crisp and bright.

ANC also added two scoreboard speaker array enclosures standing 25 feet tall, along with 284 speakers throughout the stadium, including 48 18-inch subwoofers.

In addition to the video and audio upgrades, the Longhorns also started the season with a brand-new locker room renovation. Each locker cost approximately $8,700 each and features stainless steel (to reduce smell) design and 43-inch television monitors over each unit to display the student athlete's name and photograph.

The new Texas Longhorns Football locker roomKristi Dosh

Notably absent for football? An indoor facility on par with those that have been built in recent years across the country. Instead, the Longhorns still practice under a bubble, although there's been talk of a new indoor facility for years. When I visited in the fall of 2017, I was told there are no immediate plans to replace the bubble.

There were numerous other things that would keep me from saying that Texas is on par with its peers when it comes to football facilities. The hallways leading to suites are narrow, cramped, cinder block spaces that remind me of a grade school. The team meeting rooms have blank white walls instead of the graphics common in most facilities across the country. A small thing, but after seeing dozens of facilities it stood out like a sore thumb.

Darrell K Royal–Texas Memorial StadiumKristi Dosh

Given the emphasis many stadiums have put on redesigning and reimagining club areas as communal spaces which have increasingly become more popular than traditional suites, I was surprised to find the club spaces at UT fairly basic in terms of design and furnishings, with the Ricoh Stadium Club housed in an interior space with no view of the field.

The Ricoh Stadium ClubKristi Dosh

It simply wasn't what I expected from the nation's top-earning program.

Del Conte knows he has work to do. When I asked him about the strengths and weaknesses of the football stadium, he acknowledged there's room to improve.

"When you look at a place like DKR, that’s a stadium with deep roots, rich tradition and proud history," Del Conte said. "The renovations and growth of that facility over the years have been tremendous, and it’s a very special place, but we need to always be looking at enhancing it.

"We need to improve the areas for our student-athletes, and provide the fan technology and event areas that help encourage them to come to the game instead of watching from home. The south end project is something we talk about a lot."

The south end zone project was included in a master plan released in 2016. The plan calls for the addition of "premium seating with suites, loge places, and club places." In addition, the master plan discusses other stadium improvements, including renovated concourses and other fan experience enhancements.

The Longhorns have long had the plan. Now they have the man who can get it done.

I am the founder of BusinessofCollegeSports.com, a nationally-recognized source for news and analysis on the business of college sports. From that site was born a book, Saturday Millionaires: How Winning Football Builds Winning Colleges (Wiley/Turner, 2013). After practicing...